Land of the Free

Originally written Wednesday, December 22, 2004

The mainstream media has finally caught up to independent journalism and the abuse of detainees in Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq is once again making headlines. The latest: memorandums obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reveal that FBI officials learned of the abuse and reported it. From the Times Online:

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One of the most damning memos, dated June 24 and addressed to Robert Mueller, the FBI director, and other senior bureau officials, gave the account of someone “who observed serious physical abuses of civilian detainees” in Iraq.

It “described that such abuses included strangulation, beatings, placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees’ ear openings and unauthorised interrogations ”.

The documents — mostly by FBI agents present at interrogations in Iraq and the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and sent to their superiors — indicate that such tactics must have been known to government officials in Washington.

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But this kind of news is nothing new. The mainstream media outlets report in packs. Someone from a big media outlet needs to lead the pack and break a story before the rest of the slavering horde gets in on it. For weeks, I’ve been reading similar stories of abuse, torture and murder that never make it into the mainstream press.

I have watched interviews on Democracy Now with human rights lawyers and journalists who have documented abuse in Afghanistan, Guantanomo and Iraq. Not just sexual humiliation, stress positions and sleep deprivation, but electric shocks, beatings, and murder. I’ve seen gruesome pictures of the results – a prisoner standing with his face practically crushed, blood running in rivers down his chest as two American soldiers laugh. Soldiers posing next to the bruised and battered bodies of Iraqi prisoners. Numerous photos of the dead, always bruised, often bloody.

I saw an interview with an American soldier who worked in Abu Ghraib who talked about how many of the people there were in for minor offences like public drunkenness and theft. He described how the guards at one point responded to a prisoner protest by opening fire on them, killing 5. His commanding officers took photos of the dead prisoners and posted them in the base as a trophy display.

Months ago, after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, I came across an article entitled “America’s Problem” in the Guardian. Six months later, its relevance is undiminished. Here are some excerpts.

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It was only last month that the US army formally asserted that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison consisted of “aberrations” that could not be put down to systemic problems. This week, however, two official reports have painted a more disturbing picture. The reports…describe a situation in which the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners was more extensive than previously acknowledged and in which military leadership was found seriously wanting.

The abuses sadly bear repetition. Forced nudity was common, the generals’ report confirms, and stemmed from the importation to Abu Ghraib of techniques used in Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay. “They simply carried forward the use of nudity into the Iraqi theatre of operations,” General Fay observes. Prisoners were frequently stripped and hooded, then left in extreme heat or cold for hours. One detainee was handcuffed naked and forced to crawl on his stomach as US soldiers urinated and spat on him; later he was sodomised. The importation process from Guantanamo also led to the use of dogs to frighten prisoners. In one case, US military personnel held an unmuzzled dog within inches of two naked and screaming teenage Iraqis and discussed whether the prisoners could be terrified into losing control of their bowels.

The things that happened in Abu Ghraib happened because individual Americans broke the law. But they also happened because too many Americans are prepared to look in the other direction or even actively support such abuses. America is a society with a problem. That problem erupted in Abu Ghraib. America has begun to address it. But it must not slacken off now.

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I saw parts of a news conference with George Bush yesterday. I once again heard the infantile phrases I’ve heard so many times. The enemies of the United States are the “enemies of freedom”. The United States is a “nation of laws”.

Is that what this is? Freedom? Does freedom mean the abuse, torture and murder of Iraqis in their own country? Is locking up people in Guantanamo Bay without charge or trial and denying them even the basic rights afforded by international law the work of a “nation of laws”? Is killing Iraqi prisoners who throw rocks and then flaunting souvenir pictures of their bodies what “heroes” do?

Welcome to 21st century America, land of the free, home of the brave.

Comment from Alevo:

Freedom from . . . or freedom to? The Bush doctrine has confused the concept of freedom so dramatically that I’m not sure it will ever mean anything to anyone again in our lifetime. It is now a call to arms, much like its sematic cousins liberty and justice, used to sell fear and instability. The Bush doctrine then offers itself as the only logical solution – humanitarian abuses and all – defenders of freedom. The Faustian proportions of this bargain are lost on many in America and abroad. The Bush doctrine has hollowed out some of America’s most profound contributions to the concept of citizenship in the 21st centruy. Abu Ghraib & Guantanamo Bay are symptoms of a larger identity crisis in American politics and purpose. I’m not convinced that any mainstream media outlet in America could even begin to explain why either atrocity is fundamentally wrong. That would involve the double-speak of freedom coming home to roost.